{"id":142,"date":"2009-01-21T23:59:46","date_gmt":"2009-01-22T06:59:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/matthewkirby.com\/kirbside\/?p=142"},"modified":"2009-01-21T23:59:46","modified_gmt":"2009-01-22T06:59:46","slug":"on-graphic-novels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/?p=142","title":{"rendered":"On Graphic Novels"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Rapunzels-Revenge-Shannon-Hale\/dp\/159990070X\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1232582676&amp;sr=1-1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-210\" title=\"rapunzels-revenge\" src=\"http:\/\/matthewkirby.com\/kirbside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/rapunzels-revenge-207x300.jpg\" alt=\"rapunzels-revenge\" width=\"150\" height=\"215\" \/><\/a>Recently, Shannon Hale wrote a blog entry on <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/oinks.squeetus.com\/2009\/01\/let-them-eat-pictures.html\" target=\"_blank\">books with pictures<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0 In that entry, and in its <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/oinks.squeetus.com\/2009\/01\/how-to-be-a-reader-making-yourself-fully-literate.html\" target=\"_blank\">follow-up<\/a><\/span>, she argues against the idea that young readers eventually need to be weened from books with pictures in them, that it&#8217;s not a mark of maturity to no longer <em>need<\/em> the images to enjoy the story (in fact, the idea of &#8220;needing&#8221; pictures is missing the point entirely, but more on that in a moment).\u00a0 She makes the case for graphic novels as legitimate and valuable sources of literature and literacy.\u00a0 She and her husband did <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Rapunzels-Revenge-Shannon-Hale\/dp\/159990070X\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1232577302&amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\">write one<\/a><\/span>, after all.\u00a0 I completely agree with her, and left a comment or two in her posts, but I wanted to expand a bit on those ideas here.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve recently wandered past the graphic novel section of your local bookstore or library, you may have noticed that it has grown.\u00a0 A lot.\u00a0 Sales of comics and other sequential art are climbing steadily, even in a book market trending downward.\u00a0 Those who see comics as juvenile may be dismayed by that growth, but I&#8217;m all for it.\u00a0 I enjoy reading graphic novels, and I&#8217;m fascinated by the potential and possibilities for storytelling in that medium.<\/p>\n<p>And I think graphic novels are only going to get bigger (in popularity, not size).<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s why:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Complete-Maus-Survivors-Tale-No\/dp\/0679406417\/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1232583156&amp;sr=1-2\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-214\" title=\"maus\" src=\"http:\/\/matthewkirby.com\/kirbside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/maus_hc-217x300.gif\" alt=\"maus\" width=\"150\" height=\"207\" srcset=\"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/maus_hc-217x300.gif 217w, http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/maus_hc.gif 345w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>Graphic novels are gaining legitimacy as serious works of both art and literature.\u00a0 They have been for some time.\u00a0 I mean, Art Spiegelman&#8217;s<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Complete-Maus-Survivors-Tale-No\/dp\/0679406417\/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1232571205&amp;sr=1-2\" target=\"_blank\"> Maus<\/a><\/span> won the Pulitzer, for crying out loud.\u00a0 While there are still plenty of immature comics out there, there are a lot of sophisticated, artistic, and meaningful works on the shelves.<\/li>\n<li>I believe graphic novels compete better than &#8220;ye olde print&#8221; for readership in today&#8217;s media-saturated environment.\u00a0 Blame TV.\u00a0 Blame video games. Blame the internet.\u00a0 Blame all of it if you like, but the fact is, kids growing up right now experience multi-sensory media on a daily basis, a constant stream of text, image, and sound.\u00a0 And I think we can all agree that&#8217;s not changing any time soon, putting aside the question of whether or not it should.\u00a0 Unlike a prose novel, graphic novels offer the reader a powerful multi-sensory combination of text and image.\u00a0 (Yes, they both use vision, but they&#8217;re processed along different &#8220;channels&#8221; in the brain.)<\/li>\n<li>Librarians and educators are <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.publishersweekly.com\/article\/CA6624192.html?nid=2788\" target=\"_blank\">getting on board<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0 From the linked article, I especially like the quote, &#8220;We\u2019re a visual culture now, not a typographical culture&#8230; Comics teach visual literacy.&#8221;\u00a0 The salient word for me there is &#8220;teach.&#8221;\u00a0 We&#8217;re realizing we can <em>use<\/em> comics for instruction, and we&#8217;re realizing that sequential art narratives afford unique opportunities for learning, opportunities prose novels don&#8217;t offer.\u00a0 And when librarians and educators get behind something, the market will follow.<\/li>\n<li><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-221 alignright\" title=\"dark-knight\" src=\"http:\/\/matthewkirby.com\/kirbside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/dark-knight-ny-times1-199x300.jpg\" alt=\"dark-knight\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/dark-knight-ny-times1-199x300.jpg 199w, http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/dark-knight-ny-times1.jpg 333w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/>And finally, movies.\u00a0 With the sudden popularity of superheroes and villains, the audience for comics is growing.\u00a0 Now, I don&#8217;t know if seeing Batman, Spiderman, or Iron Man on the big screen will actually draw new readers to the comic book source material, but I would guess that to be the case.\u00a0 And having a movie as phenomenally successful as the Dark Knight only makes the potential audience that much broader.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In making these points, I&#8217;m not necessarily advocating for the ascendancy of the graphic novel.\u00a0 I&#8217;m merely suggesting a few reasons why I think their popularity and influence will only keep growing.<\/p>\n<p>That being said, I am personally intrigued by the idea of writing one.\u00a0 I grew up reading comics, and in high school even tried my hand at <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.matthewkirby.org\/index_files\/comicbook.htm\" target=\"_blank\">writing and illustrating one<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0 I think it&#8217;s a safe bet I&#8217;ll come back to that medium at some point in the future.\u00a0 There are things a writer can do in a graphic novel that they can&#8217;t do with prose alone.<\/p>\n<p>Contrary to what seems like conventional wisdom, comics do not promote &#8220;lazy reading.&#8221;\u00a0 It&#8217;s just that graphic novels ask something different of the reader than prose novels do.\u00a0 Graphic novels ask the reader to mentally fill in the spaces between panels on the page, to supply their own connective imagery.\u00a0 They ask the reader to perceive the relationship between the text and the image.\u00a0 In the best comics, the text and illustration play off each other in ways dramatic, clever, humorous, and at times, profound.\u00a0 In the best comics, the text and art are inseparable.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s why this idea of whether a reader &#8220;needs&#8221; pictures to enjoy the book is missing the point.\u00a0 Sometimes, it&#8217;s the book that needs the pictures to tell the story it couldn&#8217;t without them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recently, Shannon Hale wrote a blog entry on books with pictures.\u00a0 In that entry, and in its follow-up, she argues against the idea that young readers eventually need to be weened from books with pictures in them, that it&#8217;s not a mark of maturity to no longer need the images to enjoy the story (in [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-literacy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mtjQ-2i","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}